Author Archives: Catriona Shedd

“While market researchers describe how the world is, creative people describe how it could be. Their thinking is often so fresh that they zag even when they should zig. But without fresh thinking, there’s no chance of magic” – The Brand Gap by Marty Neumeier

Check out Marty’s book The Brand Gap. Great quick read to understand branding and its power

“Ultimately, by incorporating your brand into people’s everyday lives, you are given an amazing opportunity to drive home the message that your company is not just routine, but exceptional” – The Starbucks Experience by Joseph A. Michelli

Check out the book The Starbucks Experience. I highly recommend it as an example of a company that focuses on excellent customer experiences.

inspireUX gets to the root of what makes user experience designers so passionate about their work. Every interaction we have with a product or service produces an experience, whether it be a positive or negative one. That experience can significantly influence how you feel about the thing you are using and the company that made it. You can have the best technology in the world, the best business strategy, and all of the resources in the world, but if you can’t connect with your users and create a delightful experience, all of that is worthless.

I’ve realized that it’s really easy to get caught up in the details of design work, and to get frustrated with the roadblocks that can often make creating an ideal experience difficult. It’s easy to lose track of the ultimate goal in our work, which is to make people’s lives better in one way or another. As I read through various user experience books and articles, I become inspired by the words of those who advocate for users and remind us of the impact that user experience design has on our users and our business. I started to collect these “words of wisdom” and find myself referring to them often. I noticed that other user experience practitioners grasp onto these sources of inspiration just as much as I do. It is at that point that I wanted to create a source for words to inspire user experience designers and to provide a way to make these words visible while we work on creating the optimal user experience.